Dear California V-8 Buick lovers, My trusty wagon lost her original 1960s era plates when she was stolen in 1986. Worse still, the modern plates where damaged when the car was hit in 2010. So I sure wouldn't mind replacing the 80s era plates with a 1960s looking plates. The California Department of Motor Vehicles appears to have answered my prayers with a new California Legacy License Plate Program, which is described here: http://www.dmv.ca.gov/legacyplates/index.htm There is also a FAQ that is located here: http://www.dmv.ca.gov/legacyplates/faqs.htm It appears that for a one time fee you can at least get a sequential license plate that appears correct for the 1950s, 60s, or 70s. However, there are a "few details" not mentioned in the FAQ. However, you can ferret this information out if you dig some more. For those of us not made of money, an obvious question is are there any annuals fees involved in having this speciality plate. However, if you get your hands on the actual bill, there is "more information." The actual text can be found here: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/11-12/bill/asm/ab_1651-1700/ab_1658_cfa_20120406_085825_asm_comm.html There the annual fee is specified as (and I quote: ) There is another unsettling aspect of this program: There is of course no guarantee that such environmental funding might not be ultimately seek to reduce pollution by restricting the use of classic cars. If you were a classic car owner, you might prefer to fund something - say related to antique car and culture preservation. The last gotcha to consider is that this new program appears to launch a new opportunity to obtain personalized license plates. How this works compared to existing vanity plates isn't explained clearly. It isn't clear if the same personalized plate would be considered different because it appears on a 50s, 60s or 70s plate. What is suspicious is that no differential fee is mentioned in the law for personalized versus sequential plates. In California, personalized plates will cost ya'. The annual renewal cost for personalized plate is about twice what a sequential plate will cost. The current cost is $78 a year for most programs. So if your California vanity is worth close $100 of fees, let it all hang out. However, if you would be concerned about diverting some of classic car budget every year to support an environmental fund . . . . Consider yourself warned! Cheers, Edouard:beer
u pay $100 in california! consider this - in ontario, i paid over $250 to use a year of manufacture licence plate (1972). that included the cost of the plate, the cost for approval to have the plate registrable (considered to be a personal plate), and the cost to actually register the plate + the tag.
Here's an earlier thread on the subject: http://www.v8buick.com/showthread.php?259766-California-Classic-License-Plates&highlight= As for the fear that the environmental license plate fund (which by the way, takes in something like $40 million a year) would be used to try to restrict use of classic cars because they pollute more than newer cars seems to me pretty remote. After all, if the legacy plate program gets off the ground some of that money will be coming from classic car owners. Classic cars are also such a small percentage of the overall car population of California that they can't have more than negligible effect on pollution. The link below is to the appropriations from the license plate fund, and it's almost all to fish and wildlife, conservation, parks and recreation, etc. I like the idea that my Buick license plate fee is supporting that kind of stuff. http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/pdf/GovernorsBudget/3000/3210.pdf
"The link below is to the appropriations from the license plate fund, and it's almost all to fish and wildlife, conservation, parks and recreation, etc. I like the idea that my Buick license plate fee is supporting that kind of stuff" My bet is the money goes into the general fund and can wind up anywhere. It will be distributed as the politicians see fit.
Worth $118/yr? (Re: CA vintage license plate - What isn't in the FAQ) Dear Gerry, Dennis, 1989GTA, and V-8 Buick dabblers in governmental muck, Sorry, Dennis - somehow I missed your thread and golly I'm on this board enough that I should have seen it. However, I remain skeptical of this particular program in ways you'all don't seem to be. If you dig into how this law came to be, it is clear that the legislation was poor researched and written. While in committee the author of the bill was forced to revise it because he had specified a number of pre-orders much smaller than DMV has insisted in necessary to cover the costs of making a speciality plate for other programs. At the time, people questioned where the money raised would go and that problem wasn't addressed. The author insisted it was more important to get the program going to support this need that classic car owners had than to wait and set up a specific fund where the money raised would go. Another thing that I find really puzzling is that the bill passed unanimously at every level of legislature, but had virtually no supporters. The only supporters listed were the state employees union and a local car club. Shouldn't classic car owners been consulted before the bill was introduced so that they could have expressed their support as well? This really looks to me like a half-baked law and that's part of what makes me nervous about it. If the program does generate enough orders, will the terms need to be changed simply to make the program workable? I've searched all over the interest and poured over the California Motor Vehicle code, I still cannot figure how what the renewal fees for a vantage plate of this type should be. That is the sort of information that ought to presented up-front to a perspective buyer. Judging from other vanity plate programs, the personalized plate should have a renewal fee of $78 per year. As I read this new law, there is an annual fee for a so-called "legacy plate" of $40. That appears to apply to either the sequential or personalized kind. So the logic of other vanity plate programs would mean anyone with a personalized legacy plate should pay both fees every year - or $118 per year. That is just for the privilege of having the plate. All existing fees for registering your vehicle would come on top of that. Maybe throwing away 118 bucks a year for vanity don't seem expensive, but that violates my sense of perceived value. Moreover I do object to what amounts to a "teaser tax" on classic car owners to support things that have absolutely nothing to do with caring for classic cars. If there can be special funds for not simply environmental causes, but Lake Tahoe specifically, special funds for the arts, special funds for children's programs, even a special fund for the UCLA alumni association of all things - shouldn't there be at least one fund related to thing automobile? After all, if there were no automobiles - would there be any place to hang these silly vanity plates? Like so many other things in California these days, this looks like a botched up deal. At the moment I'm inclined to patch up my 70-80s era plates and wait to see what Sacramento has to do to really make this program viable. Cheers, Edouard
